


To rule from an Iron Throne

by ZenzaoDLP



Category: Game of Thrones (TV), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Gen, Mild Language, Minor Character Death, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2015-04-06
Packaged: 2018-01-05 13:03:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1094171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZenzaoDLP/pseuds/ZenzaoDLP
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the day when the House of Potter fell to the banners and men of House Gaunt, not a single drop of Potter-blood was meant to be spared the merciful blade. Yet the duty beholden of Sirius Black, the execution of every child and cousin, was left one short at the very end, and the last Potter is raised a bastard of House Black while the red-eyed Usurper rests upon the Iron Throne.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue - The pillage of House Potter.

 

 

**Disclaimer** :

A Game of Thrones and related Game of Thrones characters, settings, terms, objects, and et all belong to and are the property of George R R Martin and/or his publishers. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended. This story is licensed under the Creative Commons as derivative, noncommercial fiction.

Harry Potter and related Harry Potter characters, settings, terms, objects, and et all belong to and are the property of JK Rowling and/or her publishers. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

 

-+-(To rule from an Iron Throne)-+-

-+-Prologue-+-

The pillage of House Potter.

* * *

**Sirius**

* * *

Matted auburn hair clung to the girl's head like strands of damp silk, a desperate tilt to her head and neck and tautness in her stance enough to envy a drawn bowstring. She had eyes of rich, vibrant green, not yet jaded by the horrors of the night that had infected the rest of the Potters brought low by uncaring steel.

He favored her with a sad little smile as he hefted _Grim_ into the air again. She did not return the expression, nor did he expect her to. She was going to die and no words of begging, screaming, or pleading would change that, no tears of shame or rage or panic. He had seen enough tears shed to squeeze his heart into a shriveled black lump in his chest, and she recognized that from the emptiness of his eyes and her family's blood liberally rusted across his ringmail and plates in wide splotches from several hours of butchery.

He did not enjoy the task set to him. She could see that as well, from the slowness of his movements. Never resentment, never denial of what must be done, but a quiet hesitancy to proceed straight into it nonetheless. She would have none of that; "If you intend to end my life, good ser, kindly do so now, before the fighting closes any further to my rooms. I would like a measure of peace still undisturbed as my vision fades and hearing falters."

Her voice was prompt, decisive. A quick death demanded on her own terms. His smile grew just a little sadder at how well this girl of fourteen? -fifteen? -knew about the ways of the world.

_But she is a Potter_. _Grim_ rose a little higher as he circled about the red-stone table between them. She turned her eyes up to the symbol of her House hanging over the doorway just before he reached her, black shawl beneath a round shield beneath a solid spear atop a stark white banner.

He struck her head from her shoulders the next moment. By some chance it rolled to a stop face up, hair clear of the eyes. They flicked but once to his own and then to that symbol again, _and_ _damn him for a fool_ , but Ser Sirius Black could not avoid looking up to it. Only then, eyes taking in the age-old banner of House Potter, did he notice his mistake.

He stepped past her body and wiped _Grim_ clean on the girl's bedsheets and sheathed the unbending steel, grabbed the folded ladder not carefully-hid-enough beneath the covers as she had heard his boot-steps approach, and stood it upright with a soft clack against the red-stone doorway in the next moment. He only had need of two steps to reach out and rip the hastily hung banner down, displaying the silent babe swaddled in another banner of the House. Only the faintest wisps of unruly black hair decorated the scalp, but those eyes that met his own were just as vibrant, just as accusing, as her own had been. His leather gauntlet creaked as he reached out to scoop the child free of the crevice and hold it aloft.

"The last Potter," he said quietly.

The banner unfurled enough to display the babe a male. He sighed and stepped down, laying the boy upon the table where his sister had just been executed. His fingers twitched as he reached for _Grim_ ' _s_ hilt one last time. He drew the cold blade six inches free before the weight of the night's course seemed to press down upon him all a sudden, a veritable flood of Potter faces flashing before his eyes the longer he met the boy's gaze, all of them a mixture of _terror_ , _accusation_ , _damnation_. His breath rattled in his chest painfully and he forced the steel out two inches further.

_Grim_ had never felt so foreign in his hands than in that moment as he drew it free and held it aloft above the boy's face. All he need do was let go and the sword would fall of its own accord, ending another life before it could begin. _If you intend to end my life, good ser, kindly do so now,_ her voice came last of all from the line of faces slaughtered in the name of his would-be-King.

"All the gods be damned, I can not do this," he uttered at last. _Grim_ fell hard and bit deep into the table as he shifted his hand but an inch to one side, angled away from the boy. It hung there vibrating silently. The tightness in his chest relented as soon as his fingers came away from the hilt, and the Potter boy's eyes broke from his gaze with a flinch. The babe began to wail, then, a shrill piercing note as strong as any bugle horn rang forth from atop the Wall. It was a futile call to arms from any remaining member of the next-to-deceased House for aide.

And aide did come, but not of the kind the boy could have wanted.

Within moments two of his men rushed in, Ser Remus Lupin and Ser Petyr Pettigrew. The latter chewed at his lips nervously, ratty brown hair sparse and compact black eyes darting. "What is it, Black?" he rasped anxiously. "Has the night dulled your aim, exhaustion your grip? Need you my dagger?"

Ser Sirius grimaced and turned to face them, slapping Petyr's hands away from the concealed daggers looming in the back of his cloak as the smaller man began to draw one from either hip. "Save your poisons for another day. I need but a few minutes rest to recover after near six hours of chopping through flesh and bone. Go tell Regulus that I've finished the Potter cousins and children."

Ser Petyr blinked, looking to the babe still wailing incessantly. "B-but Black, you haven't-"

The third member of their party reached out and clamped a hand across the boy's lips, intending to smother him. "I hear the fighting goes well against Jaime Potter and his grandfather," the scar-faced man interjected. "If we hurry... what is it, Black?"

Ser Sirius reached out and lifted _Grim_ into the air, not quite aiming it at the worn knight's startled face. "I said _I would finish this myself_ ," he uttered coldly. "Go with Petyr and inform my brother that _I_ have executed every name upon my list. And stay for the feast if you desire, but I have needs to sate of my own when this godsforsaken night is over."

Ser Remus released the boy's face and backed away, aiming the slightest of bows in the other ser's direction. "Come on, then," he uttered to Petyr the next moment and continued back the way they had come. Ser Petyr watched him go and found _Grim_ pointed between his own eyes when next he looked to Sirius.

Releasing a squeak of protest, he hurried out, leaving the two alone again.

This time the babe kept his voice to himself. The eyes were more worn with exhaustion than before, half-lidded and drooping further, chest slow to rise and fall. Ser Sirius cursed Remus' initiative, but a moment later realized the opportunity presented just the same.

He closed the door to keep out any further prying eyes, scooped a double handful of ash and nearly dead embers from the silent fireplace burned to its last, and set it down atop the girl's bedding. The sparks leapt and fell with only a bit of encouragement from his breath. In no time at all a crackling flame danced wickedly about the surface and spread toward whatsoever it could find.

Satisfied that the room would soon be in cinders, he checked to be sure the boy was still alive. Tiny lungs drew in breath and expelled it, even as the eyes were shut tight. He ripped a long strip from the girl's skirt and wrapped the last Potter heir in it rather than keep the old banner, then placed the tiny boy into a fold sewn into his cloak near the back. It was already filled with small ointments to slow blood loss and sooth pain, but as he had no need of such yet, he dumped them out upon the table to make room. The boy fit just-so inside.

"This will be a hard life, child. I hope for both our sakes that I can lie as well as I think I can." The smoke filling the space began to make it hard to breath as it doubled back upon itself, and so he wrenched open the door again, paused to throw his now-useless ointments upon the blaze, and stepped out into a new future, for House Black as well as House Potter.

* * *

**End of Prologue.**

**A/N:** This is meant to be a Fusion rather than a straight Crossover. As such please do not expect to see Eddard Stark or any of the other much beloved GoT characters make an appearance, merely their land of Westeros and similar settings/situations as viewed through HP characters.


	2. Chapter 1 - The son of a Ser

**Disclaimer** :

A Game of Thrones and related Game of Thrones characters, settings, terms, objects, and et all belong to and are the property of George R R Martin and/or his publishers. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended. This story is licensed under the Creative Commons as derivative, noncommercial fiction.

Harry Potter and related Harry Potter characters, settings, terms, objects, and et all belong to and are the property of JK Rowling and/or her publishers. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

-+-(To rule from an Iron Throne)-+-

-+-Chapter One-+-

The son of a Ser.

* * *

**Harry**

* * *

"Come, lad, at it again!" Harry Rivers scrambled off his wet arse before his Lord Father had even finished the taunt, hastening across the slippery slope to reclaim his hunting dagger from the shallowest stretch of riverbed. It was a small thing by the measure of full-grown men, but for a youth of just eight, it fit his palms and then some so that he had to grip it as if it were a bastard sword. Which was fitting, for he himself was a bastard.

But no such blade could claim to be even half as fine as his dagger, with its rich wine red-entwining-green leather wrapped hilt and polished, now gleaming silvered-red blade free of blemishes, untarnished despite the months of training, and a firm edge along each side perfect for peeling back fur and hide that narrowed to a wicked point well suited to stabbing. The Old Magic had tempered it long ago, according to his Lord Father, which was the only reason why he allowed the grip to hold onto the traitorous colors of House Potter alongside the velvet black-green of House Gaunt. That lustrous leather lay damp and cool from the latest bath in the stream. Harry squeezed tight, and fat droplets of water oozed out from between his fingertips to splash around his sopping wet boots.

Satisfied it wouldn't turn in his hands, Harry launched himself around the river stones of his name with a cry of determination.

Ser Sirius Black, aged eight-and-twenty, eyed the boy charging him with splashing footfalls and nimbly stepped back without a glance to the treacherous rocks passing beneath his own boot soles, smoothing down the front of his ragged shirt and yawning widely in dismissal. The long black and blunted training blade clutched in his off-hand dipped and rose with the motion.

Harry's own muddled green eyes dilated, widening at first by the casual disregard, narrowing the next beat with renewed vigor. Even so as he hopped quickly amidst the deepening pool and pull of the stream he had to turn his gaze upon each step in his way to be sure he didn't slip or turn an ankle in the numerous faults lurking beneath the surface. It had taken him two weeks to recover from the swelling the last time, to no end of mockery in the interim by his Uncle Regulus.

"I haven't all day, you know."

Harry finally reached his Lord Father and swung widely upward, aiming for the shins or, better yet, the thighs. He couldn't yet reach the belly and he knew better than to aim for the manhood. It wasn't his place to snip the seeds yet sown. The dagger grazed a strip of threadbare pant leg before it was knocked aside with no effort at all, nearly tearing Harry's hands away again.

Gritting his teeth at the pain reverberating up to his elbows while the hilt shuddered in his grip, Harry took a quick stumbling step back in time to avoid the follow through.

"Haah!" yelling for strength the bastard boy caught himself, lunged beneath the swing, and sank down on one knee immediately when his leading foot missed the appropriate spot and landed instead across treacherous stone. His yell turned into a surprised gasp as he fumbled to recover and, at least, take an ankle off his Lord Father before the match was concluded.

He hadn't moved the dagger an inch closer before the sturdy weight of the training blade pressed against the flat of his neck.

"Dead." The word emerged with that strange blend of humor and dissatisfaction that always signaled the end of their evening lessons with swordsmanship. Harry ducked his head and closed his eyes with a feeling of shame quickly overcoming his eagerness. "Come, and tell me as we walk, Harry, where did you go wrong?"

He stood up and stared at his hunting dagger, then his feet properly again, mulling it over on the way back toward Grimmauld Vault's southern bend. Ser Sirius waited patiently as water gave way to dirt and then fine pebbles, and eventually the young boy answered, "I was too hasty. I took my eyes off my footing instead of circling around to try and take your flank." It wasn't sullen, the way he answered. He never sulked. It was unbecoming even for a bastard. Rather, he felt disappointed in himself.

He had to be better than his true-born cousins, Ser Regulus' get, not worse.

"Is that all?" That his Lord Father had to ask meant that he hadn't found the right answer yet. It was another sort of game they played once swordsmanship was done, of course, though he typically fared better than a stroke worthy of beheading at the end. Even the old promise of a little more wine at dinner once the remainder of the household retired, so long as he answered correctly, could not brighten his mood just then.

Thinking his steps over again, Harry pursed his lips and kicked his feet against the fine walkway to shake loose the pain welling up in his sure ankle. "I came in too low and lost my balance," he tried mildly. A glance to his Lord Father denied that, a single brow arched slowly. No, of course that was too easy. He circled the final moments several times in his head before he dared venture his next, phrased as a suggestion, "I wasn't daring enough and backed away rather than turn your stroke aside?"

Ser Sirius barked in laughter. "Hah!" Greenery gave way to the dark black stone of Grimmauld proper. "As if, boy. At this rate I'll be confiscating your cake and hording it all to my lonesome self."

That gave Harry pause. "Cake?"

His Lord Father flashed a hint of smile and seemed to relieve a load bearing down upon his whole posture, and shook a finger back and forth. "Ah ah ah, don't change the subject," he chided seriously. "Keep reasoning it out."

_We only have cake on special occasions. Namedays and feastings, knightings and Lord-overs._ He suddenly grinned with remembrance. _Of course! I'd forgotten!_

"If I wasn't too quick to action, too bold in following through, or too lopsided in my balance, it would only have to be that I wasn't cautious enough, then," he said triumphantly.

His Lord Father smiled widely... and smacked him over the back of the head with the training blade. "Ow!" he tumbled forward and in a flicker of movement found himself facing the black sword now beneath his chin, so that he had to tilt his head back to meet their eyes.

"And that, Harry, is the truth you must always be aware of. You were not _cautious_ enough. There are many knights in this wide world of ours, many men - and women!- who are skilled in every known weapon and tool-turned-weapon available to our race. You must never strike out eagerly least they take you in the _head_ ; _throat_ ; _heart_ ; _lungs_ ; _stomach_ ; _spine_ ; _crotch_ ; or _legs_." As Ser Sirius spoke he rapped his baseborn child upon each section named, lightly. "And those are but the major, most easily exploited weaknesses, Harry. You have finger-and-toenails to pry free. A tongue to burn and slice out. Eyes to gouge, a nose to carve, hair to grip and smash your skull upon an object. You've soles to stab and perforate, fingers to snap one at a time." Here at least he did not move the blade to-and-fro but settled it simply upon the boy's shoulder beside his neck. Harry wheezed at the sudden change to his Lord Father and this improvised tactic.

"You must remember that you are, first and foremost, a _bastard_. And bastards have no honor of their own to turn against them; you are not of House Black, so no crime against it may be used to exploit you; you are not my true-born offspring, and thus no defamation to my name may offend you; but that lack will haunt you, and for that I must feel some guilt. I have freed you at the terrible cost of doubt wheresoever men know your name."

Tears had welled up in Harry's eyes despite himself, though he did not swipe at them. _I know that_ , he wanted to say. _I've always known that._ Yet it hurt all the same to hear it repeated from the mouth of Ser Sirius, as if to punish him.

"Harry, your next nameday is but tomorrow afternoon. You will be a boy of nine, the traditional age when most Blacks begin to grow up and leave behind their childhood whims; the gods know I've given you few enough to cling to across the years since your birth, and now I must take away even those, but I do so only to make you stronger." The training blade was drawn from his shoulder and thrust out across the stone plaza, clattering noisily to a halt far away, as if his Lord Father was disgusted with it or himself, and the older ser knelt down to place a warm calloused hand in its place.

"Harry Rivers, I have no true-born children to leave my worldly possessions, only you, a child I have raised as well a mutt of my caliber can. Were you my brother's whelp you would already be hardened and without remorse toward your heritage, but that coldest path is long beyond my reach." He leaned forward to press his forehead to the boy's, matted black hair tangling in matted black hair. "You must survive, no matter what else befalls this House."

* * *

**A/N:** Ladies and gentlemen, my sincerest apologies for the vast delay in updating. I've tried writing things from many perspectives since the prologue with Sirius over a year ago. None of them were satisfactory or reached a conclusion of any sort, save this to some small degree. I have a plan in place and we shall see more of what has changed since the Fall of the Potters in coming chapters(that shall be far longer than this, barely more than the prologue preceding it).

In other news recently a fantasy anthology that includes one of my short-stories has been published, _Of Wars and Wizards_ ([www amazon com/Wars-Wizards-DLP-Anthology-Book-ebook/dp/B00UMV1MVI/](http://www.amazon.com/Wars-Wizards-DLP-Anthology-Book-ebook/dp/B00UMV1MVI/)). I would greatly appreciate it if you could even so much as open the preview, and for only $2.99 ten original fantasy stories are available. I can personally vet for THE REFUGEE PRINCE by my friend and fellow fanfiction writer Lord Jeram. Thank you for your time.


End file.
